


it's okay if you laugh and say "impossible"

by suganii (feints)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, Giving Goshiki the closure he deserves, Hopeful Ending, No Angst In This House, Third Year Goshiki Tsutomu, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:01:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26293063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feints/pseuds/suganii
Summary: Goshiki Tsutomu has nothing he needs to prove, except to himself. He's always been the ace, even when he doesn't believe it.
Comments: 21
Kudos: 53





	it's okay if you laugh and say "impossible"

**Author's Note:**

> _a tribute to this strong boy housing a heart of fragile glass, and the ways he makes himself worthy._

Let's talk about Shiratorizawa in the wake of Ushijima. Let's talk about a Shiratorizawa who get treated to looks of pity, crowds with dithering tongues talking about them quietly, and some _not_ so quietly, in the halls of the Sendai Gymnasium where not so long ago, they'd walked as _gods_. The Summer Interhigh passes, and then the Spring Qualifiers, without Shiratorizawa making an appearance.

_Is this the end of an era, do you think?_

Pacing down the corridors with his hands in his pockets, Goshiki freezes. Behind him, two first years stop when he does. They've heard it too after all, it's impossible not to. Even two years later, they're still unable to avoid the disappointed gazes, the acerbic words and tut-tutting of people who'd once touted them as champions. _It's a shame_ , they'd say, and always along those lines come an added, _Have you heard of Ushijima, though? I heard he was going to represent the national team in Rio. Wonder what he'd think of his team now. . .  
_

He blows out a shaky exhale, imagines for a moment, the shadow of Shirabu-senpai, smiling a smile with teeth, and tries to hide his own inadvertent grin. Goshiki very calmly meets their gazes and holds it, until their words die off. Only then does he resume his walk, murmuring to his juniors who follow him as he does, Y _ou heard that, right?_ He smiles. _Remember those words. One day, we're going to make them eat it._

There are days when, for lack of sleep, he jogs in the small running path outside the dorms. Sometimes his path leads him down toward the stables, where the horses have been kept for the night. Some days, when he's truly in the mood, and his energy is high, and the kindly horsekeeper agrees to let him out past curfew, he puts the saddle on the gelding nearest to the entrance, a pretty black one with a star on its forehead, and takes it out for a small trot.

This, too, is freedom. There are nights when it's all he can do not to lie up in bed, tracing the cracks in his ceiling for hours and hours, counting the beats between each erstwhile snore of his roommate, whose snores seem to have gotten louder and louder over the years. There are nights when he gets to messaging Tendou-senpai, or Shirabu-senpai, or Semi-senpai, when he needs reassurance, when he doesn't know if anything he's doing is right.

(Not Ushijima-san, though. Never him. Goshiki's saving that particular number for the day when he can finally type the words he's been savouring, but not until then.

Some days, it's a hope that he presses tight to his chest until the feeling of being squeezed tight and raw passes, and he can breathe again.)

There are days when he wonders if he'll ever measure up to being the ace he's always wanted to be. But then.

But _then_. A first year with honey blonde hair might come up to him, an outside hitter just shy of 175 cm, asking if Goshiki can teach him a jump serve. Another first year, pushing glasses up his nose, will ask if Goshiki-senpai would _please tell that dumbass over there that he's not jumping right, again, senpai, please._

And Goshiki remembers, that's right. He's a _senpai_ now.

And these kids don't care that he isn't Ushijima. Ushijima isn't here, will never come back, so he'll have to be the senpai to guide them. He won't realise it then, but his heart hasn't been glass, not for the longest time. Beneath that beating flesh of veins and sinew, lies tempered steel.

Let's talk about a Goshiki who looks ahead, who runs forward, runs onward, upward and out. This is a boy who's dreamt of reaching for the stars, hungry to swallow the world whole. Maybe this isn't his time, maybe this isn't Shiratorizawa's era. Maybe all the naysayers have a point when they say their volleyball club isn't anything like how it used to be.

So _what_?

Goshiki's experienced it. That rapid hummingbird hum of his pulse, the buckling of knees that can't help but give out after drills that run from morning to night, shivering through 6 in the morning runs around the campus, screaming himself hoarse because he's the captain now, and that means the team is looking to him.

Have you ever wanted something so badly your body physically aches? Goshiki would give anything to shake the slowly accumulating dust off the shelf - still empty from the trophy all of them had anticipated they'd receive on that fateful October when Ushijima saw his last high school loss, not at the end of a block from Ichibayashi, or a spike from Sakusa's wicked spinning hands. A head of ginger hair had stared open-mouthed at them from the other end of the net, and at the time, Goshiki had wanted to shake him.

 _You won_ , he wanted to say. _You took the world from us, so wipe that look off your face._

That shelf in the Coach Washijo's office, right in the middle of newspaper clippings from when Ushijima made his debut at the Interhigh his first year of high school, taped out magazine pages of when he'd made Volleyball Weekly covers, has not been filled at all for the whole of the previous year.

Goshiki had watched Shirabu's lips purse thinner and thinner, had watched his form tighten like a branch about to snap, until the day he had finally given in. Given up. On a hot summer day in June, he had waited outside Goshiki's classroom. His eyes had not met Goshiki's once as he'd handed over the clubroom keys to Goshiki. Then, he'd walked away with a simple, _You're captain now. Don't forget to head over to Washijo's office later, and for the love of the gods, Goshiki, please don't lose the keys._

When Goshiki marches onto the court, his teammates following at his back, the number one jersey emblazoned proudly across his back like a clarion call, but not, never a swansong, he no longer thinks of Ushijima, walking confident steps ahead of him. He doesn't think of Shirabu, straightening his shoulders and snapping at him about his posture, _again_ , to hide the slight trembling of his fingers.

He doesn't think about anything, except the here and now.

 _One more time_ , he thinks when the whistle blows, and his first serve bounces neatly on the sideline and away from the receiver's hands.

 _Once more_ , he thinks when a spike goes flying over the wall of blockers and their libero, the boy with the glasses, skids on his knees to make the catch, bouncing it back into the air.

 _Just once more_ , he thinks, crouching slightly, keeping his fingers loose as the ball from Karasuno's captain floats straight toward him, and he sends it high and up, already preparing his approach.

 _Please, give us one more,_ he thinks, as Hinata zips away to the right side of court, and he keeps his hands open and ready as he crouches.

He sees the path of the ball in his mind's eye before it moves, spiked by a deadly hand. A thousand different voices ring in his ears in the space of as many heartbeats-

_Goshiki, your receives need work-_

_When you move, you want to no longer be thinking-_

_I've always thought you'd make an amazing ace-_

_There's no room for doubt, captain. Trust yourself, trust the hours you have engrained into your muscles, and go-_

-and his body has moved before he can think about it, into the space that had before been vacant. It was a spot he'd purposefully left open, _yes, let them_ think _there's an opening_ , and then it's gone, spinning, spinning, higher and higher.

"Yura," he yells.

The Shiratorizawa setter gets under the ball as multiple hitters move in for the attack, and the ball comes soaring, closer and closer to Goshiki's outstretched palm. _Please,_ he thinks, _give us just this one more_.

His palm meets the ball, and he thinks he sees clouds parting.

Later, much later, he unlocks his phone on fingers still shaking with adrenaline, and pastes in a message he'd already had saved on his notes app.

_We made it, Ushijima-san. Will you see us in Tokyo?_

A reply, three hours later.

_I'll be there._

**Author's Note:**

> ...This is for all those who think Goshiki wouldn't make it to Nationals again. I love you all :3
> 
> TItle taken from Kessen Spirit.


End file.
